


A Tree Grows From A Planted Heart

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Because Any Tea Made From Molly Would Get You High Somehow, Dreams, Dryad!Molly, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fantasy Drug Use, Gen, Panic Attacks, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 16:03:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17206508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: The grass is still green around Molly’s grave, in contrast to the dry brown that marks the rest of the landscape, and there are snapdragons and lavender in bloom around the grave marker, the coat seemingly untouched and moving faintly in the breeze. None of those things surprise Caduceus. It’s the tree that draws his attention, a tall maple that Caduceus would guess was a hundred seasons old or more, and that hadn’t been there when he had last seen the grave. The leaves are still thick on the branches even as more blanket the ground, leaves a fire of oranges and reds and purples along with an impossible blue like the sky in summer, or like the skin of the goddess of moonlight and autumn.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Chapters one and two of this story were originally published as prompt fills for Critical Prompts, and posted in my work, "These Prompts Just Went Critical." However, I wanted to add another chapter to the story, so I thought it'd make more sense to publish all three chapters as a stand alone work, so here we are. Enjoy!

_Caduceus doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he knows a dream when he’s in one, the edges of things gone soft and indistinct. He’s walking by himself down a well worn road, and he knows it’s late autumn by the bite of frost in the air and the way the leaves, once a riot of color on the trees, have fallen into drifts underneath bare branches. Still, there’s a bit of color up on the road ahead, and Caduceus walks toward it in good spirits._

_The grass is still green around Molly’s grave, in contrast to the dry brown that marks the rest of the landscape, and there are snapdragons and lavender in bloom around the grave marker, the coat seemingly untouched and moving faintly in the breeze. None of those things surprise Caduceus. It’s the tree that draws his attention, a tall maple that Caduceus would guess was a hundred seasons old or more, and that hadn’t been there when he had last seen the grave. The leaves are still thick on the branches even as more blanket the ground, leaves a fire of oranges and reds and purples along with an impossible blue like the sky in summer, or like the skin of the goddessof moonlight and autumn._

_The leaves make no sound as he walks on them, as soft under his feet as if they had freshly fallen. The bark of the tree under his hand is warm when he touches it, and delightfully rough. He stands for a moment and just lets himself experience it, the smell of autumn in his nose and the feeling of the ground beneath him._

_Caduceus is not surprised when the bark shifts beneath his hand, when the tree splits open to reveal a tiefling with skin the color of lavender flowers, clothed only in tattoos and scars. He only takes a step back as the tiefling’s eyes open, crimson as heart’s blood, as he steps from the tree with legs as shaky as a newborn foal’s. There are maple seeds tangled in his hair._

_“What—?” The word comes out in the language of the fae, and it sounds like wind in the branches, like leaves rustling._

_“The earth remembered you, Mollymauk Tealeaf,” Caduceus says softly. “She remembered you very well.”_

Caduceus wakes when the cart stops and he sits up with a yawn and a stretch, blinking in the light of the afternoon sun. When he sees that everyone is looking, not at the road ahead, but at something off to the side of it, he turns his attention that way as well.

The tree reaches up into the sky, the leaves as bright and as colorful as the person whose grave it marks.

Caduceus hears two voices, one of springtime and sun and one of autumn and moonlight, and they both say the same thing.

 _A gift_.

“Let’s go,” Caduceus says with a smile as he reaches for his staff and stands up. “He’s waiting.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It should have been weird, drinking Molly tea, especially since Molly was sitting right there next to her, alive and breathing and braiding Yasha’s hair as he leaned against Caduceus for support. Honestly though, after seeing Molly walk out of an impossible tree after being a year dead, drinking the tea made from the plants that had grown from his grave had been the least weird.

It should have been weird, drinking Molly tea, especially since Molly was sitting right there next to her, alive and breathing and braiding Yasha’s hair as he leaned against Caduceus for support. Honestly though, after seeing Molly walk out of an impossible tree after being a year dead, drinking the tea made from the plants that had grown from his grave had been the least weird. There had been a lot of crying and cheerful yelling and questions about how and why. Caleb had said something about dryads and Jester had started talking about wood-wives and Caduceus had declared that everyone was getting over-excited and they all needed to relax.

Beau leans against Caduceus’s side and stares at the leaves they’ re sitting on. They’re blue, some of them, impossibly blue, not quite the color of Jester’s skin, but close. She touches one, and is surprised when the color doesn’t come off on her hands.

Jester herself is sprawled on her stomach, her sketchbook open in front of her. She started drawing something at some point, but now she’s stroking the page as if it was Frumpkin. Beau watches her take another sip of tea and roll it around in her mouth for a moment before swallowing.

“Molly tastes minty, like family,” Jester declares, her tail waving lazy figure eights in the air. “And purple.”

“I don’t think that purple has a flavor, Jess,” Fjord says, his drawl as slow and lazy as honey dripping from a beehive. He’s laying on his back, staring up at the leafy canopy of the tree above him. The way that the sunlight filters through the branches and cast patterns on his skin reminds Beau of their time underwater.

“It does! It’s all smooth, and in the back of the throat. It’s not like red. Red’s all sharp and closer to your teeth,” Jester says as if any of that makes any sort of sense.

Yasha says something that Beau doesn’t understand, the language sounding like the song that crystal birds would sing. Molly chuckles softly and says something back to her in that same language. It’s different than what Molly had been speaking earlier, when he had first stepped out of the tree, words that had sounded like water dripping off leaves, like wind rattling branches. Caduceus had answered him in that same language, with words like water trickling over rocks. It had surprised her when Caleb had spoken it as well, though the way he had spoken the language had made Beau think of the hiss and roar of a forest fire.

On the other side of Caduceus, Caleb’s braiding Nott’s hair into the tiniest of braids while Frumpkin drapes himself around his neck and purrs so hard that Beau swears she can feel the vibration of it against her skin even though she is several feet away. It is a furry sort of sound, the kind of sound that surrounds you like a warm quilt. No wonder Caleb prefers Frumpkin as a cat.

Everything is peaceful and calm, the perfect sort of contentment that Beau had only heard about from the monks skilled in meditation. It was like a waking dream….

“This can’t be real.”

The words fall out of Beau’s mouth like rocks, shattering the perfect peace, breaking it like her fists can break bone. She can hear her heart beating in her ears, the thud of it as heavy as a kick to the ribs.

“This can’t be real. It’s too good, it’s too perfect. This… this doesn’t happen. This can’t be happening.”

Beau feels anxiety and dread humming under her skin. She wants to run. She wants to wake up, because this has to be a dream, this can’t be real. Any second she’s going to wake up and Molly will be gone and it will hurt, gods it will hurt, but it’ll be real, because this _can’t_ be, it can’t be even as badly as she wants it—

Molly’s hands don’t leave Yasha’s hair, but his tail wraps around Beau’s wrist when she goes to get up and pulls her back down. It’s sudden, unexpected, and the weight of it is warm and solid against her wrist, nearly as heavy as Caduceus’s arm across her shoulders.

“I’m here,” Molly says. “I can’t believe it either. I keep waiting for everything to go dark, like before, or for everything to become very bright, like it did after. I don’t know how it happened, or what I am, or what happens next.” He shakes his head, and a few maple seeds fall from his hair and slowly pinwheel to the ground. “All I know is that I’m here, and _you’re_ here, and everyone else is here. Whatever this is, however it happened, I’m going to enjoy it until it stops. Same as before.”

Beau opens her mouth to protest and Molly smirks and yanks on her wrist with his tail.

“Quit harshing my buzz, Beau, and just enjoy something for once in your gods damned life.”

That startles a laugh out of Beau, as sudden as a bird taking flight. “You’re such an ass,” she says as she relaxes into Caduceus’s side, feeling her eyes close as tension runs out of her like blood from a wound. “If you’re not here when I wake up, I’m going to find your ghost and punch it. I can do that now. Punch ghosts.”

“Oh I can’t wait to see that,” Molly says, and his chuckle follows her into sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s been only a day since Molly stepped out of a tree and back into the world of the living, a day full of confusion and wonder filling his heart so full that he could hardly bear it. For a little while it had been enough just to be alive, and he had been content to put the questions of why and how off for another time. But his friends wanted to leave in the morning, and some questions will be answered if he wants them to be or not.
> 
> “In the tales that I have read,” Caleb had said to him earlier while the others had been making dinner. “If you are a dryad, you won’t be able to leave your tree.”

It’s been only a day since Molly stepped out of a tree and back into the world of the living, a day full of confusion and wonder filling his heart so full that he could hardly bear it. For a little while it had been enough just to be _alive_ , and he had been content to put the questions of why and how off for another time. But his friends wanted to leave in the morning, and some questions will be answered if he wants them to be or not.

_“_ In the tales that I have read,” Caleb had said to him earlier while the others had been making dinner. “If you are a dryad, you won’t be able to leave your tree.”

Molly had just laughed, because in the bright sunshine, in the daylight, he had refused to believe that he had been brought back from the dead _again_ just to be tied down to a _tree_ for the rest of his life. But it was the deepest part of the night now, and even though he was warm and safe sandwiched in between Caleb and Caduceus, he couldn’t sleep for worrying.

It was an easy task for Molly to slip out from between Caleb and Caduceus without waking them, he had done similar in situations with different people and much less clothing several times before. The fact that he was doing it now in Caleb’s borrowed pants and one of Fjord’s old shirts amused him in some small way. His coat was the only piece of clothing that was _his_ now, torn and bloodstained and tattered from being out in all weathers, and he had refused to take it off for hours after he had first put it on. Jester had offered to mend it for him with magic, but he had declined, accepting needle and thread from Yasha instead, working on it the same way he would have done at the carnival. Slowly.

Molly steps out of the dome of Caleb’s magic (and isn’t that a fun new trick he’s learned, everyone has learned so much since he died) and past the silver thread. He knows Caleb will wake up, but he also know Caleb can’t leave the hut without the magic collapsing. He sincerely hopes that Caleb just thinks he’s answering a call of nature (and oh, that’s funny because he kind of is) and won’t send anyone to check on him. Though maybe it’d be better if he had someone to spill his thoughts to, he just wants to be alone for a little while.

Molly sits under the tree ( _his_ tree), and looks up at the moonlight between the branches. He remembers dying, and it had been a good death, if there could be such a thing. He hasn’t told any of the Nein that he had almost been relieved, that he had always felt that he had been living on borrowed time and that in death that doomsday clock had no longer ticked over his head. He thinks he told this to someone he met after death, but the details are hazy now. There had been darkness, and then there had been light, and then there had been green all around him, green and gold and silver and he had been _warm_ and then he had been stepping out of the warm and the green back into the world, with his old memories and his old scars and his old friends.

Molly reaches up into his hair and pulls out a maple seed, running his thumb over it, the texture soothing somehow. There are always maple seeds in his hair now, he’s lost count of how many Yasha had pulled out when she had been combing his hair, which had grown at some point between death and now. He still has his old friends, but they look at him with new faces. There is more gray in Fjord’s hair, tusks peeking out over his lower lip. Jester’s eyes hold sadness more readily than they used to, even underneath the joy. Nott is braver than she had been, according to the stories Caleb and Jester had told him, despite the goblin’s protests. Caleb has more magic now, but he also smiles more, laughs a little easier. Beau has become, somehow, less unpleasant, not that he will _ever_ tell her that. They still verbally spar with each other, but it’s different somehow.

“They’ve grown,” Molly whispers softly.

There’s a tiny little _pop_ as the seed in Molly’s hand bursts open, a tiny green shoot sprouting out a few inches before producing one small, perfect leaf. Molly stares at it, eyes wide. Had he—?

“My sister can do that too.” Caduceus’s voice is a friendly rumble in the dark.

Molly flinches in surprise, then forces out a smile and a chuckle. “Do you make any noise when you walk?”

“Not usually. I could try, I suppose, but I didn’t want to wake anyone else up. And you seemed rather lost in thought.” Caduceus lowers himself to sit cross-legged in front of Molly, which means Molly only has to crane his neck slightly to look at the firbolg.

Molly likes Caduceus, has ever since he stepped out of a tree and laid eyes on the man. Maybe it’s because being around someone so tranquil makes the anxiety churning in his gut ache a little less. Maybe it’s because looking at Caduceus is different than looking at his other friends. When Molly looks at the others, he sees all that has changed in his absence. When he looks at Caduceus, all he sees is someone new to discover.

Caduceus nods at the little seedling cradled in Molly’s hand. “Do you want to take that with us tomorrow? It’s a little late for planting, but you could take care of until the spring.”

Molly looks down at the tiny plant. “Is it magic?”

Caduceus chuckles softly. “No more than trees usually are, I think.” He produces a pouch from somewhere on his person and puts one hand on the ground between them. “Sorry to disturb you, but would you mind terribly going on a journey with us?”

Caduceus talks to everything, that’s one of the things Molly has discovered about him. He talks to birds and flowers and bees and even to his food before he eats it. He watches as Caduceus nods, buries his hand into the earth, and places the soil into the pouch.

“Do the things you talk to, do they talk back?”

“Not at all, but they seem to understand me just fine.” Caduceus holds out the pouch towards Molly. “Want to put that little fella in here?”

Molly looks down at the seedling and grins. “What do you say? Want to go on a trip? See exciting new places?”

He’s not expecting an answer. It’s a joke. That’s all it is.

_Yes_ , says the plant in a whisper of leaf rustle.

Molly stares at the plant in wide-eyed shock, feeling his heartbeat in his ears, his breath an ache in his lungs. It’s with shaking hands that he places the seedling into the pouch.

“There we are.” Caduceus pokes at the dirt with one large finger for a moment, then says a word. Molly watches a thin stream of water well up from the back of the firbolg’s hand to trickle down into the pouch. “And there we go, a little water for you.”

_Thank you._

“It—“ Molly’s voice catches, his throat gone suddenly dry. “It says thank you.”

“You can hear it? That’s wonderful!” Caduceus looks at Molly, beaming for an instant before the smile falls off his face. “Molly? You’re upset, did I miss something?”

“This means I’m a dryad, doesn’t it?” Molly’s voice shakes, and it’s like the day he realized that his blood was filled with magic, something strange and out of his control that brought up more questions than answers. “I can make plants do things, and they talk to me and I don’t want to stay here all alone, I didn’t ask for this, I—“

Caduceus takes Molly’s hands, his huge thumbs moving in soothing circles against Molly’s palms. “Molly? I know change can be frightening. It’s going to be all right, really it is.”

“I told Beau that. I told her everything was all right,” Molly said, practically gasping the words out, his tail thumping erratically among the fallen leaves. “I told her I would enjoy this life until it stopped again. That was so easy to say, in the daylight. It was so easy to believe that I had been brought back for a _reason_ not just cursed to be stuck here, alone.”

“Oh, okay, I see what the trouble is. I’d like to have a conversation with you about that, but it’d be better if you could calm down first. I have magic that can help, if you like?”

“Please,” Molly manages to say, because his heart feels like it’s going to beat itself to pieces, and if he dies who knows what he’ll come back as next?

Caduceus lets go of one of Molly’s hands, makes a gesture, and says a word that sounds like rain on a roof at midnight, like a gentle breeze blowing through grass in a field in summer, a soothing sound. Molly feels the magic wash over him, feels his mind settle and his heart slow, and he almost slumps with relief.

“That’s better, isn’t it?” Caduceus goes back to holding Molly’s hands, and Molly finds himself glad for the contact. “Now, who told you that you’d be stuck here?”

“Caleb. He said that if I was a dryad, I wouldn’t be able to leave my tree.”

“Well that explains it.” Caduceus sighed. “Caleb is very clever, and he’s heard and read a great many things. But books and tales don’t get everything right. I’ve known a few traveling dryads, in my time. I told you about my home, right? About the corruption taking over the woods?”

Molly nods.

“Oh good, sometimes I forget who knows what around here. Well, there were all sorts of spirits and small fae living in the woods. Still are, though they’ve been twisted and changed by the corruption, poor things. The dryads were probably the largest, and while it’s true that most dryads never leave their trees or the woods they call home, it doesn’t mean they _can’t._ Many did, when I was young and the blight wasn’t as strong. They were looking for a way to purify the woods, same as we were. I couldn’t tell you what happened to them after they passed through. Maybe they’re still out there, looking. It was so many seasons ago.”

Molly feels a pang of sympathy for them, the searching ones, sudden and unexpected. “So I could go?”

“I believe so. I don’t presume to know the will of the gods, but I do not think you would have risen again if there wasn’t some greater purpose for it.” Caduceus squeezes Molly’s hands gently. “You could always ask.”

Molly laughs. “It’s different for clerics, Caduceus, the gods listen to you.“

“They listen to everyone, Molly. But if you don’t want to talk to them, well, there’s someone else here who will listen to you.” Caduceus smiles. “Well, besides me anyway.” He lets go of Molly’s hands and gives the tree next to him a friendly pat.

Molly looks up at the tree, at the light of the moon shining on the leaves. He feels almost a little silly as he places his own hand on the tree trunk. It feels warm, despite the chill in the air. He thinks about the warmth he had felt inside the tree, how safe it had been.

“Ummm, hello? I—I’m very grateful for everything you’ve done for me, I am. You were warm, and you were safe. But I can’t be safe forever, it’s not who I am. I’d like to be able to leave with my friends, in the morning. Can I do that?”

Silence, but a listening sort of silence. Molly waits. Maybe time is different for trees. The seedling had spoken to him quickly enough, but it was young, and maybe faster?

_My roots grew from your heart, and your body was sheltered within my own._ The tree’s voice is leaf-rustle and the creaking of branches, somehow warm, somehow green. _Neither of us will wither apart from the other, and as long as I am strong, you shall be also._

Molly leans his forehead against the bark of the tree, relief slowly giving way to exhaustion. “Thank you.”

_You’re welcome,_ says three voices at once, sunlight and moonlight and wind in the branches.

Molly has suddenly had enough of mysterious voices for one night. Right now it’s all he can do to keep his eyes open.

“Did you get the answer you wanted?” Caduceus’s quiet voice is almost as good as a lullaby.

Molly manages to lift his head and nod, and Caduceus’s smile is moonlight piercing through shadow.

“Well that’s all right then.” The firbolg helps Molly to his feet before handing him the leather pouch containing the little seedling.

“Will you help me find a place to plant this?” Molly asks sleepily. “In the spring?”

“Nothing would make me happier,” Caduceus replies, and together they walk back to where the others are sleeping.

“Everything all right?” Caleb asks quietly as Molly slips back into his bedroll. “You were gone a long time.”

“Just needed to ask the tree something,” Molly mumbles, one hand curled around a pouch and the small life within. The morning will bring new challenges, and he’ll have to relearn his place in the group, find out what new magics are in the blood and bone of him, do some growing of his own. Right now though, surrounded by the warmth of friends, new and old, he rests, content.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm angel-ascending on Tumblr and angel_in_ink on Twitter if y'all want to stop by and say hi!


End file.
